


How to human

by TheFierceBeast



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Abstract Sex, Angel/Demon Sex, Angst, Banter, Breaking UST, Castiel is perpetually confused, Crowley and Feelings, Frenemies, M/M, Opposites Attract, Pillow Talk, Post-Season/Series 09, True Forms, UST, celestial booty call, they both talk too much
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-31
Updated: 2015-08-31
Packaged: 2018-04-18 08:52:27
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,639
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4699859
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheFierceBeast/pseuds/TheFierceBeast
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Set sometime after Season 9. For plot purposes, Crowley knows Cas has been human and is still affected by the experience, and Cas knows Crowley is addicted to human blood and the emotions it provokes in him.<br/>Dialogue, exposition, PWP. Possibly a load of rubbish but I just had to scratch this Crowley/Cas itch of mine.</p>
            </blockquote>





	How to human

**Author's Note:**

  * For [days4daisy](https://archiveofourown.org/users/days4daisy/gifts).



Summoning him is like drunk dialling an ex – you never actually expect them to pick up. So when Crowley, blissed out on Type-A in an anywhere-wherever motel room, hears the thrum of wings, he thinks at first it's the sound of his own blood rushing in his ears. But then, there he is. As large as life and twice as bright. Castiel.

"What do you want, Crowley?"

"Now is that the way to greet your old partner in crime?" Crowley says. Castiel blinks, slowly. He folds his arms. Crowley pulls a pouting face. "Aren't you going to say we've never committed any crimes together?"

"I _am_ aware of the idiom, thank you. And to deny it would not be strictly true."

Crowley rolls his head against the thin pillows, piled three high. He could have had a penthouse suite, but this miserable room has more, what d'ya call it? Pathetic fallacy. "You got me there, angel. And now I've got you here…"

The look of mistrust on Cas's face is almost human, and it gets Crowley right in the chest. "Why did you call me here?"

"Because I didn't think you'd come."

"Your prayer was… deafening. You sounded…" Castiel's brows lower.

Crowley says, "Desperate?" and receives the tiniest nod in answer. He chuckles, bleakly. "Aren't we all?"

"Are we?"

"Listen… look…" He tries to sit but he's still woozy, so he rolls onto his side instead, imagining his position, _draw me like one of your French girls_ , and a sedated little chuckle pops out. "Come sit here next to me. Oh don't give me those eyes, do I look like I'm in any position to _assault_ you? And besides. That's not what I want."

"What _do_ you want?" Castiel repeats. The cheap mattress dips under his weight.

Crowley sighs. "Oh, you know – world peace, a cure for cancer, a white picket fence. A chat."

"You screamed my name across the ether for a chat?"

"Was it a scream?" Crowley closes his eyes, forces a smile.

"I thought you were under attack. I could have left you to die."

"Yeah, but you still came, didn't you." He opens his eyes. "Why did you come?" Castiel flicks a glance in his direction, like _I'm the one asking the questions here_. He doesn't answer. Crowley could swear that what he sees in his expression is guilt. "Let me guess. For old time's sake. You kill me, I torture you, once in a while we let each other off… as bad as each other really, aren't we, pet?"

"I do not trust you."

"You're quite right and sensible not to." So why does that sting so much? Damn humanity, damn the whole mewling herd of them straight to Purgatory. 

Castiel nods, his lips pressed tight together. "You persuaded me once to start civil war in heaven. I won't be so easily persuaded again."

"Of course, of course. You're a lot savvier now, I know. Both of us are. An angel of all creatures reminded me that nobody can be trusted to keep their word, and I taught you how to – well, I was the architect of my own demise there, wasn't I? Funny, really, if you have an absolutely terrible sense of humour. We learnt from the best. Each other." His lips feel dry, his throat thick with it, the too-brief blood buzz starting to wear off already. "So, you're right to be mistrustful. But you don't have to be. Not now I'm reduced to…" He shrugs his shoulders against the pillows, the sleek lines of his bespoke shirt, sleeves rolled to the elbows, wrinkling. The end of the sentence sort of dies on his lips. That little line appears between Castiel's brows: not the anger one; the – is he imagining this? – the one that spells concern.

His voice is a lot softer when he speaks. "What is it you really want, Crowley?"

And Crowley can feel, horror of horrors, that damned dampness welling in his eyes and sod it all for a game of soldiers if he's going to cry in front of bloody Cas, but what's meant to sound sarcastic comes out accidentally cracked in two when he says it: "A hug."

"A hug?" It's almost worth the humiliation to see that look of utter confusion, like a dog trying to work out where the invisible ball was thrown. It gives Crowley a bit of his pep back.

"A hug. C'mon now, in between all the running and hunting and killing and betraying, don't you sometimes just want a nice, big hug?"

"I… yes."

It's Crowley's turn to be surprised. He searches Castiel's sombre face for any trace of mockery, before remembering he's not capable of it – or is he? Is he, now that he's been through the veil of humanity and back? Crowley shuffles up further onto the pillows until he's sitting. The fog in his head is starting to clear, but for some reason the stranglehold of emotion isn't loosening around his throat. "Beg me."

It seems almost reflex when that soft mouth tightens and Castiel says, "I will not beg," then, almost comically affronted, "…you started this."

"Alright, fair point. Tell me to beg you, then."

He looks mildly exasperated at that. "Why would you ask for that?"

"You really don't... Ah! How can you have felt what it's like to be mortal and still not understand?" The bed shifts slightly under their weight as Castiel fidgets, inclining his head ever so slightly to one side. His eyes don't leave Crowley's and their unearthly directness is unnerving, even to a creature not of this earth. Crowley lets out a slow breath. It could be the blood talking, but he's becoming convinced he can read this angel's mind. "The thing is, darling, none of us know how to human. Not even the humans. They're a desperate, ugly, frightened, greedy, weak, pleasure addicted swarm..."

"And yet we love them above our own kind," Castiel finishes for him. Outside a siren wails. Flashing lights strobe through the tissue-thin drapes.

"Love. Do you? Love them?" Crowley watches the colours slide, blue to red, down Cas's face. "How does that feel, to you?"

"Pure."

"Pure." Crowley grunts. "Like white fire, I imagine."

"Yes."

"Not like blood and bone and flesh and sweat and hunger..." He wets his dry lips with the point of his tongue, and Castiel looks away, the red light seeming to linger in his cheeks.

"You no more feel physical appetite than I do."

"Ah but I can remember, because I want to remember... Can you? Do you want to?"

Castiel frowns. "I can..." His voice halts, and he glares at Crowley, helplessly, all the blue of those lights in his conflicted gaze.

Crowley wants to grasp him by the shoulders and give him a good shake, but all he manages is to lean forward, closing the distance between them a swaying little. "You were human. You. Not your vessel, not its second hand echoes, not my centuries-old memories, you. You felt it. And I felt it, again, for real, damn those fumbling apes. And now, all I... oh, what's the use?" His hands gesture, emptily, and drop to the over-washed bedspread.

"You want to feel it again," says Castiel, and it's not a question.

Crowley sighs. "Don't you miss a bit of PB and J, Feathers?" His eyebrows raise suggestively, but the tiredness tells in his voice. "I know I do. Ah, damn it all. Do you wonder why so many of the meat puppets want you? I mean," he holds his hands up placating, although Castiel's face is a mask of calm, "no offense, not saying you're not a perfectly adequate figure of a man..."

"I assume it is my strangeness."

A low chuckle. "Well you got _that_ right. Yeah. They can sense it, you know. Your grace. Well, not _your_ grace, but..." He reaches out, adjusts the collar of Castiel's awful overcoat, smooths it flat, Castiel's eyes following his every movement. "It calls to them. You could pollute that vessel all you wanted in any way you wanted." He wets his lips again. Castiel's gaze is still on him. "But you'd always keep that seed of purity. That innocence. The delicious creamy core of that frigid righteous popsicle you wear. And no matter what I do or do not," he can't keep a traitorous sigh out of his voice, "I will always be evil."

"You're not evil." Castiel says, evenly. Crowley raises one eyebrow. "Nobody is evil. Not even a demon. We are our actions."

"Well in that case it would seem that we're not so different, eh?" Shifting on the bed, Crowley arches his back, stretching, appearance be damned. "Angels and demons: pretty much the same thing."

"I am nothing like you." He should have seen that coming a century off.

"The view good, is it? From up on that high horse?"

"I am worse. We are our actions. And I have done more evil than many."

Crowley blinks. Raises both eyebrows this time. "Yeah, well." His smile is lopsided. "This never leaves this room, or I _will_ kill you, but… we're both pretty bad at our jobs. You're dreadful at being good, and I'm… well… You think demons can change?"

"Anyone can change," Castiel says, then, quietly: "and I'm not frigid."

Headlights from outside the window flutter romantically across his face, but the hand that Castiel reaches out and places on Crowley's knee is nothing short of excruciatingly awkward. Crowley drops his chin to his chest and just stares at it for what feels like minutes but is probably seconds. When he looks back up, Castiel is still staring at him, anxiously. "Am I to understand that my anguished cry for humanity has been interpreted, rightly or wrongly, as some kind of celestial booty call?" A tiny nod. "Well. That escalated quickly." There's a broad grin fighting to make its way out of his chest and onto his face and he's too frayed and tired to fight it for reasons of mere pride.

"So…" Castiel hasn't moved his hand, but his fingers are moving, experimentally, rubbing against Crowley's kneecap in a way that shouldn't be at all this arousing. "What happens now?"

"Love, I know you're an angel, but surely you're more clued up than that."

"That's not what I meant and you know it."

The slightest spark of fire from him has Crowley's grin spreading wider. "Well, I believe the next logical step would be some form of divestment of attire…"

"OK."

There's a click of his fingers, like some kind of porno Mary Poppins, and they're both abruptly naked, their clothes folded neatly on the chair opposite the bed – Crowley can't help but give an appreciative little grunt at that detail. For some reason he glances down into his own lap before he has the presence of mind to sneak a peek at the angel. He pinches the bridge of his nose. "Efficient, yeah, efficiency has its merits… I was thinking more the old-fashioned way, but…"

"Oh. Sorry." And they're both fully clothed once more and Crowley has the strong, inappropriate desire to laugh, in something approaching delight. 

It's his face, it's just his face: Castiel looks so serious, that anxious little line never disappearing from between his fine brows. Crowley says, in a tone skirting dangerously close to fondness, "I bet you're a hoot at parties, Cassie. C'mere."

The coat goes first, onto the floor like a bad pick-up line, then Crowley is undoing the buttons of his cheap white shirt, meticulously one by one. Castiel sits, passive, allowing himself to be undressed, and that's somehow worse than if he helped, or put up a fight, somehow _hotter_. It means when the angel is naked but for a pair of ridiculously demure white shorts, Crowley is still, albeit a tad dishevelled, fully clothed, his head clearing, to his dismay, by the second. They could go on like this. He could have him like this… Crowley reaches forward, placing a hand on Castiel's hip, thumb sliding beneath the elastic of his waistband. He leans in, eyelids lowering, and for the first time Castiel turns his head away, murmuring, "No…"

"Not on the lips, huh?" He immaculately feigns indifference. "Suit yourself, Pretty Woman." His hands on Cas's waistband fidget and Cas lifts his hips just a little, like his body is a separate entity that just can't help it. "'And let angels pitch their tents around thee.'" Crowley chuckles, a low rumble, but the hot blue glare he's expecting doesn't come. Castiel is watching him from beneath lowered lashes. "Not that I'm not enjoying the view, sweetheart," he allows his gaze to rake over the pale, smooth expanse of the angel's chest, "but you don't seem very… participatory." He tries not to reflexively flinch when hands reach immediately for his throat, then shaking fingers hook into his loosened tie and pull it free. _Shaking_. He fumbles around Crowley's shirt buttons, these hands that can heal or devastate with a touch still unpractised at the simple human tasks they hold in such high esteem. It makes something go tight in Crowley's chest: he tells himself it's lust, as Castiel finishes the task and slides a palm down his chest, elegant fingers carding through the dark hair there. Crowley says, "What are you feeling? Right now?"

"Moderate arousal?"

His expression is so uncertain it makes Crowley laugh. "And they say romance is dead. See, that tight little borrowed body of yours responds, but your heart's not in it. I feel almost insulted. Where's your heart, angel? Where are you hiding it?" He places a hand, mirroring Castiel's, on the angel's chest. "Does one of those Winchesters have it, hrmm?"

"The heart is a muscle which pumps blood around the body." As if to illustrate, Crowley feels a sudden pulse and throb beneath his palm. "If you are referring to love..."

"Love, ah yes. There it is again." His hand climbs, settling around Castiel's throat, thumb stroking the jumping pulse there. So many sentimental little habits… his other hand traces the Enochian still tattooed across the base of Castiel's ribs and Cas shivers. His borrowed grace should have, _could_ have, made him perfect again – there's no reason for him to keep these warding marks, who only knows how they're affecting him in his angelic state… Crowley tries to hold his gaze. Says, "Love. The one big shiny perk of humanity. See, they've lumbered me with pain, and pity and guilt. They've made me a fucking junkie for empathy. But the big one, the main attraction, the glittering prize – that's the one they're not sharing. Why is that, Cas? Why?" The desperation he hears in his own voice is no surprise. Really, he doesn't even care much anymore. Caring seems unimportant when your sworn enemy is tugging your suit trousers down past your knees.

"If it is humanity you wish to experience then would you not be better off pursuing this..." Castiel sounds drunk, breathless, "…whatever this is… with a human?"

"Humans, pah! You know what they are? Spoilt. They don't realise. They haven't suffered like you and I. They don't know the pain of having loved and lost – oh I don't mean lovers and family and friends, I mean to be human once, then to have that taken from you..." 

The muscles of Castiel's belly tighten beneath Crowley's fingertips. "Sam seemed to cope with it."

Crowley resists the urge to press a palm across his face, force fingers into his mouth, anything to stop him talking. But he resists, because that affront, that pain – that's part of it, isn't it? "I'm not talking about Moose! I'm talking about me. Me and you, vous et moi, here, now..." He stops himself, forces his voice back to its usual sardonic purr. "But we were talking about love, were we not?"

"If that is what you wish to experience, it is not a matter of the heart or any other physical attribute. It is of the soul." 

His argument seems a touch unconvincing with that rising flush across his heaving chest, Crowley's hand wrapped around his cock. "The soul. Ah! Tricky things, souls." Crowley buries his face in the crook of Castiel's neck, the burr of stubble against his open mouth.

"You should know. You've tricked enough of them into bondage." He lets his head fall back, breath hitching at the gentle scrape of Crowley's teeth. 

Crowley's mouth chases the curve of his throat, the tick of his pulse, make a play for his lips again just for the frisson of him pulling away. "Such pillow talk! Tsk, tsk darling. Pot, kettle."

The corners of Castiel's mouth tighten. "I have tried to atone for my mistakes…"

"Is that what this is?" He's only half-joking when he says it: "Am I just a particularly dashing hair shirt to you? Oh, say it ain't so-"

"That's not what this is."

"Then what is it?" In spite of himself, Crowley's answer is as quiet as Castiel's interruption. How can they be, physically, this close, and yet so far apart… "Admit it, you need this as much as I do." Castiel frowns, silent. "What? Don't let me be all pathetic on my own now…"

His voice is still little more than a whisper. "You wouldn't understand. You do not have a soul."

"Ouch." Crowley turns his face away, but he can still feel the gentle warm stir of the angel's too-human breath against his cheek. "People keep saying that."

"It's the truth."

"See – when I made my own little deal all those centuries ago – I mean," he glances down at what Castiel's right hand is currently doing, "I needn't have bothered, if I'd been born to this body, but I digress – when I made my own deal, my soul burned for it. Burned and blistered and shattered and twisted into this debonair devil you see before you today. But that's it, you see – I was made from my soul. I'm _all_ soul, sweetheart." He pauses. Neither of their hands do. Somewhere in his mind, the penny, as they say, drops. He says, "I want to see you."

"You can see me."

"No, _you_. All of you."

"Crowley, I'm naked," he says in that tone of weary patience, "You can see every part of me," and sweet Hell, if he doesn't shift in Crowley's arms to spread his thighs a little wider in illustration. Crowley swallows; his throat clicks. But delightful as the display is, it's suddenly a minor distraction.

"Not the meat suit. You. Truly you."

"I thought that you craved humanity." Cas sounds truly confused, but Crowley has – pardon the pun – seen the light.

"And you've been educating me as to how we can never achieve it. So sod it. Aren't we bett-" he checks himself, continues, "just as good as them? Shouldn't we all be celebrating our diversity and all that, hrm?" His fingers tighten in the back of Castiel's hair, and Cas tips his head back, eyelids slipping closed again, lips parting.

"My true form is larger than this room."

Hesitant. He's winning him over. Crowley says, "Blah blah, show off. Yours is bigger than mine, I know - story of my life. Come on, idiot teenagers manage it in the back seats of cars. Get creative."

"It would be foolish."

"Ah, but doesn't love make fools of us all."

"It would be dangerous."

"Come on, tiger – live a little."

"It could kill us both." Castiel's eyes snap open, intensely blue and pleading – but for what Crowley isn't sure, or perhaps he is sure and doesn't want to admit it: they both hope for the same thing. Cas nods, almost imperceptibly. Behind him, a vast dark shadow of wings unfurls, filling the walls, flight feathers tattered and broken but still huge, majestic. His eyes are bright, brighter, bluer, his skin glowing with Heaven's fire. Crowley's eyes widen. His head falls back, and he roars free.

This shabby motel room is just a void, a container for the swelling, titanic light and dark of them. The blackness billows, puffing itself up, pressing to the corners to take all the space available. But fingers of light come creeping, a thick beam penetrating the swell of tangible gloom that covers it, presses and smothers and overwhelms, writhing: the smallest spark can pierce the darkness and this light is huge, consuming, searing, thrusting… They are so absolute that they are almost solid masses, these awful walls of dark and light; so utterly opposite and each so utterly essential to the other. The push and pull of them is clouds and sunlight, dawn and blazing sunset and moonlit night, fighting and fucking over the insensate forms of their abandoned vessels that lie, bare and intertwined on the bed below. Flashes like lightening crackle across the ceiling, rolls of visible thunder shaking the ground in a five mile radius, they the ground zero of their own crisis as their choreography of shade and blaze reaches its zenith, flickering out into a heady calm twilight haze for an eternal second. Then they're separating, like gasoline and water. Flowing apart, they return rushing into their vessels.

Around them, the remains of the room smoke gently, glass cracked, wallpaper peeling in charred curls, the smoke alarm a silent, melted lump. Crowley opens his eyes first, gasping. "You are beautiful!" His chest heaves, mouth slack, eyes crazy and wet. "Beautiful, terrible!"

Castiel pushes himself up on one elbow. Trembling; his entire vessel is trembling like a plucked harp string, his hair plastered damp to his forehead. He leans across and before Crowley registers properly what is happening, he is pressing a sweet kiss to Crowley's parted lips. His eyes are wide as he looks into Crowley's eyes. He says, "So are you."

**Author's Note:**

> My first foray into Supernatural fandom after binge-watching the whole lot in one go over a course of weeks (currently halfway through S10 and trying not to get spoilered!)  
> Dedicating this to days4daisy as a little thankyou for being the first Supernatural writer whose excellent fic I read :)


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